Strategies of Control: The Case of British India

Colonial rule, based on economic exploitation, was justified on the grounds that the colonizer brought civilization and modernity to the colonized peoples. This rule was secured through both coercive and non-coercive strategies of control. This paper examines the strategies deployed by the British in India from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century using Athusser's theory of 'ideological ' and 'repressive' state apparatuses. This paper argues that the English based educational system created a colonial subject that was absorbed within the ideological discourse of the British. Anglo Indian law which reinterpreted traditional Indian law in terms of British legal philosophy reconstituted Indian subjectivity and altered traditional relationships to serve British interests. However, these 'ideological ' apparatuses were contradictory and incomplete and subjects resist their subject positions. During moments when such resistance posed a threat to the colonial state, the British readily deployed the 'repressive ' apparatuses at their disposal. This paper uses the example of a strike by steelworkers in 1920 as an instance when the coercive power of the state was used to suppress genuine worker discontent. The use of force was legitimized through a discursive strategy of restoring 'law and order.'